SUBJECTS

Ivan the Terrible, Part I

(Ivan Groznyi)

Sergei Eisenstein
USSR, 1944

In Person

Peter Bagrov

Peter Bagrov is a film historian, curator, and archivist specializing in early Russian and Soviet cinema. He currently serves as vice president of the International Federation of Film Archives and until recently was the senior curator at Gosfilmofond of Russia. Note: Bagrov will be present at the February 11 screening only.

Like Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible is a collaboration with “that magician Sergei Prokofiev,” as Eisenstein called him; it has a strange magic bordering on sorcery. Filmed under difficult wartime conditions, it is set in sixteenth-century Moscow, where the newly crowned Czar Ivan attempts to thwart both the boyars (the feudal nobility) and the hold of the church to create a unified Russia. Set mostly in cave-like cathedral interiors with frescoed walls, the film itself is like a fresco come to life in painterly long shots and tortured close-ups. Part I follows Ivan from his coronation to his voluntary exile to Alexandrov to await his people’s summons.

FILM DETAILS

Screenwriter

Sergei Eisenstein

Cinematographer

Eduard Tisse

Andrei Moskvin

Language

Russian

with English subtitles

Print Info

B&W

35mm

96 mins

Source

Janus Films

CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.